Revelation; Project complete, index, summary

I want to dedicate this project to the lady who (re)-introduced me to the Christian faith.
Hi there, Gill.
"We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
The starlight on the western seas".

The series of threads on Revelation has now been completed.
So this is the promised Index.
I'm offering three different ways of reading these threads;
They can be read in the order of John's chapters.
They can be read in the approximate order in which things happened- which is slightly different.
Or they can be read in the original order of publication- which is different again, for reasons which seemed good at the time.
(Yet are they not three indices but one Index. This is a great mystery)

There will also be an index of the Bible references quoted.
And a copy of the "definition of God" I once produced, which lies in the background of all of them.
And anything else which occurs to me which might be useful.

I'll be interested to see any suggestions to improve the Index, or any comments which people might have on the series as a whole.

This lists the passages quoted on this Revelation series from the first half of the Old Testament..
The numbers in yellow identify (on the Chapter Order list) the threads where the quotations can be found.

It would be appropriate to add here a full copy of the "Christian definition of God" that I've used elsewhere.

The Creator.
That which is not the Universe, but the originator of the Universe.

I'd like to expand the original definition
(very cautiously, because Philosophy isn't really my field)

Let's make it a really trinitarian one;

God is a Creator
God is one who Communicates
God is one who becomes Incarnate

God is a Creator

I see this view as distinct from both Monism and Dualism.

As I understand the difference;
Monism resolves everything to one point of origin.
Dualism resolves everything to two points of origin, distinct and independent.

Creation theory falls short of being genuine Monism, because the created universe is understood as distinct from God.

Creation theory falls short of being genuine Dualism, because the created universe is understood as dependent upon God.

My private theory is that Creation teaching ought to be called "One-and-a-half-ism", but I don't suppose it will catch on.

As far as I can see, this involves the traditional teaching of "ex nihilo" ("out of nothing") Creation.

Because if God is "creating" using pre-existing raw material, then the material is not genuinely dependent upon him- this has become Dualism.

Or if God is producing the material of the universe "out of himself", then the material is not genuinely distinct- this has become Monism.

"Ex nihilo" is the only logical alternative, which is presumably why the teaching was developed in the first place.

God is one who Communicates

This assumption is built into Biblical religion.

In the first place, the Bible is believed to contain examples of communication (as reported, for example, by the prophets).

Furthermore, the Bible is believed to reflect a policy of communication.
It is said that God is using the Bible to "reveal himself", and so Biblical religion used to be described as "revealed religion".

The belief that "God is one who Communicates" links back with the belief that "God is one who Creates".

In the first place, some of the content of the communication points to God as Creator.

The proper Biblical answer to the question "Why do you believe your God made the universe?" is not really "Because that's the only way to account for
the universe."
The truly Biblical answer is "Because he says he did, and I believe him."

But I think the very act of communication also points to God as a Creator.

Any act of communication necessarily implies a distinction between the communicator and the other party.
I've already said the Biblical understanding of Creation involves a distinction between God and the universe.

An act of communication implies the existence of a "will" in the communicator, or at least some sort of analogy of one.
But the same could be said, surely, of an act of "Creation".

Finally, a God who creates a universe thereby sets up a relationship between himself and the universe.
The effect of communication is to set up a relationship between himself and individuals (or even a group of individuals) within the same universe.

I assume that a purely monistic deity would not be communicating with, or setting up a relationship with, parts of itself.

My point is that
The idea of the God who Creates
and the idea of the God who Communicates
are very akin to one another.

The kind of God who would Create would also be the kind of God who could Communicate.

God is one who becomes Incarnate

I could hardly, really, leave this out of a definition of the Christian God.

The understanding is that the Incarnation is a more direct presence of God within the created universe.

If this is true, it's the ultimate form of Communication, as the author of Hebrews points out;
"God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets
but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son".

But it's also the ultimate form of "establishing a relationship";

Because the doctrine of the Incarnation is that the Creator and his creation, divinity and humanity, are bound together within the person of
the Son.
The bond is understood to be irrevocable.
It's impossible for a relationship to get any closer than that.

Anyone who tries to understand the church's teaching about the Incarnation will discover that it's all about finding the right "balance".

On the one hand, the distinction between the divinity and the humanity must not be exaggerated, to the point that the unity disappears.
On the other hand, the unity between them must not be exaggerated, to the point that the distinction disappears.
The correct position is somewhere halfway between the two extremes.

But this is exactly what I said, at the beginning of this piece, about Creation;
That it occupied a halfway position between Monism and Dualism.

So it seems to me that the "balancing act" which Jehovah's Witnesses love to mock, when it comes in the teaching about the Incarnation, is also
inherent in the very doctrine of the Creation itself.

The kind of God who would Create is also the kind of God who could become Incarnate.

I began by naming the Christian God as
The one who Creates
The one who Communicates
The one who becomes Incarnate.

I now suggest that these three ideas are akin to one another.
They belong together, naturally.

Whether you can believe them or not, they all belong to the same kind of God.

In relation to the above list of references, the question might be asked; why is this interpretation of Revelation being carried out with such
attention to other Biblical passages?
"Scrabbling around in the Old Testament" is one phrase that I've seen.
Someone else has suggested that Revelation "is complete in its own context"; that it can and should be treated as an autonomous book, and discussed
in isolation from the rest of the Bible.

I think the sheer size of the list of references goes a long way towards answering the question. The Bible is the cultural context in which Revelation
was written. It carries a multitude of "echoes" of other Biblical passages.

The readers of John's time knew the Old Testament so much better than modern Christians do, and they could not have failed to have recognised these
allusions. And surely they would have understood the book in the light of these recognitions. When they saw the "Beast from the sea" in ch13, for
example, they would have recognised to the allusion to the "beasts from the sea" in Daniel ch7. Then the point would have "clicked"; in both caes,
the image represents a kingdom. And this process of recognition-and-understanding would have been happening again and again and again and again all
the way through the book.

This is what I've been trying to duplicate. If the "echoes" were planted there in the first place, as clues to the meaning of the book, then it
would be foolish to ignore.them.

Let me illustrate my point with an analogy that I've used before;
If you want to understand old political cartoons, you will find yourself completely at sea unless you know something about the politics of the time,
and the way it was presented in the cartoons of the time.
For example, you may see a cartoon of a pipe-smoking bulldog having a fight with a kepi-wearing poodle. Anyone of my generation can unpack the meaning
of that picture by remembering the significance of the various "props".
Bulldog=British
Poodle=French
Pipe=Harold Wilson ("And I mean that sincerely")
Kepi=General de Gaulle ("I live in Colombey-les-deux-eglises; they worship God in the other one")
So this is easy enough- an argument between the British and French heads of government.
But anyone who insists on treating the cartoon "in its own context" and ignoring any cultural allusions will be left floundering around, making
guesses at random. He'll be telling everybody in sight that the pipe is obviously a volcano in South America, and the poodle represents the archangel
Gabriel.

So, yes, Revelation is written in a sort of code.
But most of us have a copy of the code-book.
It is called the Old Testament.

I come to Revelation as a student of history.
I see Revelation as a chronicle, and I treat it in exactly the same way as I would any other source document (the fact that it is describing events in
the future instead of events in the past is only a minor complication).
In other words, I try to get past the obscure descriptions and the disjointed chronology in order to establish exactly what happens and in what order,
and why one thing leads on to another.

The procedure justifies itself, in my mind, by the fact that it works. That is to say, it seems to produce a narrative sequence with a clear
storyline, one that is coherent and self-consistent.
(I was particularly gratified by the smooth way that the "seven kings" passage slotted into it. I came into this project with no thoughts on the
"seven kings", so this was an unexpected bonus)

That is why my interpretation of Revelation has a chronological structure.
I've tried to demonstrate this in various places.
The "War on the Saints" thread is one of them.
The "Time, times, and half a time" thread is another.
It will be seen in the "Timeline" index of threads.
This is not a "timeless allegory", but a history.

Many interpretations of Revelation produce "timelines" of future events, which are filled with elaborate detail.
I do understand Revelation as pointing towards future events, but my interpretation is much less detailed.
For me, this is a picture painted with fairly broad brush-strokes.

Nevertheless, I do see a rough sequence of events.
And here is my brief summary of what Revelation is "predicting".

1. A persecution of the church, implied in the background of ch1.
2. The great crisis of ch6, the "4 Horsemen" episode.
(Pestilence, War, Famine, Death)
I took this to be God's reaction to the previous persecution.
3. The rise of the two "Beasts" of ch13, the great world-state and its leader. This implies a recovery from the events of ch6, so I suggested that
the Beasts might rise to power on the strength of leading the world out of that crisis.
4. The renewed persecution of the church by the Beast.
5. The destructive catastrophe of the Trumpets and Vials.
6. Finally, the Return of Christ and the "winding-up" of the old world.

The crucial passage on this point is Matthew ch24 (and the parallels in the other gospels)
He says that the coming of the Son of Man will be "as the light comes from the east and shines as far as the west" (v27).
I take this comparison to mean "In an instant, and universally visible".
He then goes on to say "They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Whatever this looks like on the
day, I think the point is that the arrival would be universally recognisable. When Christ returns, everybody will know. There will be no room for
doubt on the matter.

Conversely, Matthew tells us how to recognise someone who is not the Christ.
"Then if anyone says to you 'Here is the Christ', or 'There he is', do not believe it."
"Do not go into the wilderness."
"Do not go into the inner rooms".
In short, if you have to go anywhere to meet him,.then he is not the true Christ. That's the rule of thumb. That kind of coming is not "as
lightning", nor "on the clouds of heaven".

What causes confusion is the idea that he would return by being born into a new human life on earth. Then the question of "How to recognise him?"
would arise.
But Matthew is telling us that anyone living a human life on earth here and now is by definition not the Returned Christ, and that solves the
dilemma

It's become the custom to call him "The Antichrist", although the title doesn't appear in this book.
I must admit I don't like using the label, because it carries so many associations from mediaeval fantasy and Hollywood fantasy and other
speculations. All this baggage tends to confuse discussion of the figure found in Revelation.

Let's get back to basics and consider the definition.
The disciples were told by Jesus that "many will come in my name, saying 'I am the Christ'"- Matthew ch24 v5
The early church was told by John that "as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come"- 1 John ch2 v18
The natural and reasonable assumption is that both references to "many" are to the same kind of people, and that an "antichrist" should be
understood as someone claiming to be the returned Christ (taking the Greek ANTI as "in place of").

Does this apply to the Beast? There are certainly signs that Christ is being imitated, not only in the "horns of a lamb", but also in the business
of "recovering from a mortal wound". I think the narrative is sending a sufficiently clear signal that he would, indeed, be claiming to be the
returned Christ.

But if he publicly claims to be the returned Christ, then he meets the definition of an "antichrist" and belongs to that category. Since he would,
presumably, be the final and supreme example of the species, I suppose you can call him "The Antichrist".

The theme of "Faith" is very important in Revelation.
Understandably so, because Revelation deals with times of crisis.
There is the immediate crisis of persecution.
Then, in the later stages of the book, there are the crises affecting the life of the world at large.
The essence of faith is "Trust".
God's people will need to be able to keep their trust in their God through both sets of experiences.

There is the word PISTOS- "Faithful".
It is the "faithful" who accompany the Lamb (ch17 v4).
Those in the churches are urged to be faithful, if necessary "unto death". (ch 2 v10)
Such a one was Antipas, who is called a "faithful witness" (ch 2v13)

The same word also means "reliable", one in whom trust can be placed.
So Christ himself is descibed as a "faithful witness" (ch1 v5), besides being "faithful and true" (ch19 v11) or a "faithful and true witness"
(ch 33 v14).
I think Christ is called "faithful witness" in a double sense.
He is a role model for such as Antipas, having been "faithful unto death" on the Cross.
But he is also a "witness" in front of his Father, when he "confesses" the names of those "who have conquered".

And in the last two chapters the "words" (LOGOI) of God himself are also described as "faithful and true" (ch21 v5 and ch22 v6)- though in those
cases the RSV chooses to translate the word as "trustworthy".

So "faith" is about the faithful putting their trust in one who is faithful, the firm holding firmly on to firmness.

It might be translated as "patience", or "endurance", or even "patient endurance".
In any case, it's an indispensable quality in Revelation.
Without that quality, the church could not resist the harassments of their persecutors.
So the time of tribulation which John is sharing with his readers (ch 1v9) is also a time of "endurance"- the two things go together.
Over and over again, the seven churches are commended for their "patient endurance" during the time of trial.

Endurance depends upon faith.
In the middle of destructive troubles, faith gives an assurance that better things are coming, there's "light at the end of the tunnel".
"There'll be blue-birds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see,"
That's why the two things are linked together in this book. ""I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance"- ch2
v19

"Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints"; ch13 v10 (and similarly ch14 v12).

I'm emphasising the verse just quoted, because it's the "mission statement" of the book of Revelation.
The whole object and purpose of the book is to encourage the faith of the saints, in order to motivate their "endurance" during a time of
persecution.
The readers of John's own time need encouragement in order to endure the persecution of the Roman empire.
A church facing the persecution of the Beast would need encouragement.
And the saints would need encouragement again if the world was living through the traumatic events of the second half of Revelation.

Incidentally, if this book is a manual of encouragement designed for the benefit of a church suffering persecution- that would explain why it seems so
puzzling in the interval, when the church is not suffering persecution. We don't find it easy to understand its purpose, because it's
addressing a need which we're not experiencing.

But if the church is plunged once more into a time of tribulation, they will find the kind of encouragement in this book which will motivate their
faith to "patient endurance".

In this series, I've been putting together my own version of a "timeline" of Revelation events.
But I made no attempt whatever to tie them in with the current calendar.
I haven't been trying to calculate exactly when the times of "tribulation" might start or finish.

There are reasons for this.

In the first place, Jesus himself refused to give any indication of time. He told his disciples that it was "not for them to know" the times which
the Father had set. Why on earth should we think that we're entitled to acquire knowledge which they weren't allowed to know? But everybody knows
that quotation.

There's also the pragmatic point, that so many calculations have been made and proved wrong in the past.

I'm also convinced that trying to calculate exact intervals of years from one event to another is a waste of time, because this is not the way God
works. There is no reason to think that God lays out events at exact time-intervals, so there is no point in trying to second-guess his
calculations.

As a test case, let's take the "seventy years" predicted by Jeremiah.
Jeremiah told Jerusalem that "these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (Jeremiah ch25 v11), that God would punish Babylon "when
seventy years are completed" (ch25 v12), and that he would bring the exiles back from Babylon "when seventy years are completed for Babylon" (ch29
v10).
So if God is working with exact time-intervals, there should be seventy years between the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Babylon.
But the records of history tell us that the respective dates were 587 B.C. and 539 B.C. This is not an exact seventy year interval.
The explanation is probably that "seventy" is a symbolic number, one that keeps appearing in the Bible and Jewish tradition. It combines "7", the
number which points us towards God, with "10", the number which points towards completeness or perfection. So "seventy years" means "the complete
period which God has assigned".

And I suspect that exact calculations based on the implied "seven years" of Daniel ch9 v27 will go astray for exactly the same reason. We need to
recognise how often numbers are part of the symbolism,

The purpose of Revelation is the building of faith, in order to motivate the "patient endurance of the saints".
But date-calculation may be a symptom of impatience, an unconscious attempt to reduce the necessity of endurance.
And a failed date-calculation, after the event can be a very effective killer of faith.
Faith would be patient and willing to wait for God to do things in his own time.

how cool, i waqs waiting to see this work, but wow....this is so organized.....gives me inspiration for my life style even. i'm using all the
information...all of it ( gonna lay it on my people here in Texas)

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